High-speed fan-facing Wi-Fi rolled out at Old Trafford
Manchester United has launched high-speed fan-facing Wi-Fi at Old Trafford footfall stadium to enhance fan matchday experiences.
The world-famous football stadium is in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, and is the home of Manchester United. With a capacity of 74,310, it is the largest club football stadium in the UK.
US-based Extreme Networks became Manchester United’s official Wi-Fi network solutions and Wi-Fi analytics provider in 2022, with the commitment to deliver the latest generation of Wi-Fi connectivity at the historic stadium for the hundreds of thousands of fans who visit the “Theatre of Dreams” each season.
Wi-Fi 6 network
Earlier this year, Extreme Networks completed the rollout of a new Wi-Fi 6 network at Old Trafford, deployed in partnership with Verizon Business.
The ultra-fast connectivity supports the Club’s digital offerings, including mobile ticketing and membership rewards, and provides the Club with the best possible platform to explore new immersive services to improve the matchday experience for fans.
Extreme Networks is a leader in cloud networking focused on delivering services that connect devices, applications, and people in new ways.
Manchester United’s first home match of the 2023/24 EPL season kicked off on August 14, 2023.
The Club will leverage the ExtremeCloud IQ platform to gain visibility into network performance and management across the venue as well as ExtremeAnalytics solutions to better understand fan behaviour and drive more personalised and informed decisions around both the fan experience and overall venue operations.
New fan experiences
The new Wi-Fi 6 network supports new experiences for fans, including updated digital signage throughout the historical stadium and mobile ticket scanning at the stadium entrances.
Fans can reliably access social media apps and stay in contact with friends and family during matches, as well as leverage the Manchester United mobile app to navigate the stadium or get match updates when they are away from their seats.
ExtremeAnalytics provides Old Trafford’s operations team with real-time insights into fan activity and network performance, which they can use to continuously improve digital fan experiences throughout the stadium.
This includes application usage insights, which can help identify areas and moments of increased usage to ensure better provision of services.
Manchester United’s IT team is leveraging ExtremeCloud IQ to monitor and optimise network performance, giving it a view into the entire stadium network through a single dashboard.
The cloud-managed network also enables the IT team to easily scale operations based on event needs and automatically adjust traffic streams based on network traffic, helping ensure seamless experiences for fans and staff connected to the network.
With a global community of 1.1 billion fans and followers Manchester United is one of the most popular and successful football teams in the world.
